Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-15-Speech-2-031"
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"en.20000215.3.2-031"2
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"Madam President, Mr Prodi, I should like to applaud your proposal for a radical decentralisation of the Union’s activities and ask why, then, you are proposing a legislative programme which would lead to centralisation. I remember your predecessor’s speech five years ago. Like yourself, he promised “less and better”, but Mr Santer finished up by having delivered “much more and much worse”, and I do not believe that you, either, can deliver the goods you promise. You talk about decentralisation but practise centralisation. The legislative programme is, in fact, a litany of subjects over which the people are to be deprived of influence and in connection with which, Mr Prodi, you are to take influence away from the people, even on social questions. You talk about greater transparency, but produce proposals which would lead to documents which, at present, are available for public inspection being locked away. Your Commission consists of the only 20 people in the EU who can propose that the quantity of legislation should be reduced. Local politicians cannot do that, once legislation has been passed in Brussels. The legislative programme from the Commission ought at least, therefore, to be accompanied by as long a list of tasks which are to be referred back to the Member States and to the processes of popular democracy. Otherwise, the number of laws produced in Brussels will just keep on growing. We have passed 10 000 laws and as many amendments, and the applicant States have had 26 000 documents sent to them which, as debated by the Polish parliament, fill 140 000 sides of paper. Even by this stage, that is already too many by far. Brussels should make decisions on fewer matters and hand over more decisions to the people, the regions and the Member States. The only decisions which should remain with Brussels are those concerning cross-border issues which the national parliaments can no longer legislate on effectively. What is more, the work carried out in Brussels should be of a much higher quality and be completely transparent, so that people might at least have some small sense of owning the process, now that Mr Prodi and his predecessor have taken their autonomy away from them. I should also just like to draw Mr Dell’Alba’s attention to what the founding fathers of the European Union dreamed of. Take a look at Jean Monet’s memoirs. What he envisaged was what he called a small, practical secretariat. That is not what Mr Prodi is President of today."@en1
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